Project 1: Klipper

Yuppers... learning yet another firmware. This time it's Klipper.

Why? Its the hot new thing and I have to see if it brings what it promises to the market.

Where? On my Taz6 and my stock Prusa MK3s+ because they both run 8 bit boards and this is supposed to make those boards better.

Really? Basically. 

So what is Klipper? Besides going to their WEBSITE to me its an odd marriage of RRF and Marlin 2.0.

So Klipper takes advantage of the powerful processors of the Raspberry Pi to do all the calculations of the gcode + any advanced features then outputs movements to the printer board leaving tons of headroom basically making an old board or even a new fancy 32bit modern board more capable. This means our boards no longer have to do any math just send signals to the motors and such AND we can add new features our boards can't handle on their own like Input Shaper for instance. 

So everyone should get Klipper right now?

I would say no. Yes it actually has improved my print quality on the 2 test machines. The stock Prusa actually has better layers compared to not having Klipper BUT it's been a struggle to make it work. If you missed my post yesterday I couldn't even get Klipper to work on more complex prints like a benchy without failing because the Prusa Einsy board couldn't handle the load of commands due to a poor serial USB firmware Prusa uses.

In time and a heck of a lot more effort on my end as well as more bugging of people who are more experienced with Klipper I should have an easy to follow guide on github for everyone and I also believe Klipper will add better functionality in time and mature as a firmware for the common person. I say this as someone with experience in Marlin and some in RRF who's banging their head at Klipper because it is so different for no reason than to be different.

So again why in the world am I doing this if I'm saying it's so bad?

Again there have been pretty drastic improvements in print quality and I can print with 2x the accelerations and nearly triple the print speeds and end up with the about the same print quality or better than stock due to the power Klipper offers. The issue is that Klipper works much better on "supported" hardware. Basically mainstream  products and boards have a wealth of information while Einsy Rambos and Mini Rambos are basically non existent even with example configurations that to be honest do not work because Klipper has updated faster than people have updated the configurations. 

I'm going to keep at it because I see the advantage and feel it brings new life to a system with very minimal change. I know I posted using a programmer to reprogram the Einsy which doesn't sound like minimal change BUT I'm and idiot and realized afterwards that I can just connect the Pi via the Pi connector on the Einsy and go straight to the UART of the board completely ignoring the USB. So if adding a Pi and installing some firmware makes a MK3 print better and give it new features without needing to fully rewire it and spending minimal dollars why the heck not right?

Are there any other advantages?

Yes! Leveraging the power of the Pi we get octoprint replacements such as Mainsail and Fluidd which look and function better than octoprint and work directly with Klipper. We get "live" firmware editing. It's not as good as RRF but you have a config you edit directly from the screen to change settings and a quit reboot and your settings are live so no more building firmware in VSCODE and compiling and then sending to the printer. New features like a slightly better linear advance called smooth pressure advance and Input Shaper which measures your resonance on each axis and reduces or removes ghosting at much higher speeds unlocking the ability to print faster with the same or better result than before.

So while Klipper has taxed me mentally there are positives to look forward to and hopefully I can open the door to get Klipper into hands of those with stock Prusa printers with minimal effort and really see if this is the next step forward or just another step to the side.